Brazil Back On Center Stage

Run-and-gun Squad Eager For Rematch With U.s.

July 27, 1990|By Skip Myslenski, Chicago Tribune.

SEATTLE — They are something, these irrepressible basketball Boys from Brazil. They meet the United States Friday in one semifinal of these Goodwill Games, and so-once again-they and their singular style are back in the spotlight of center stage.

They were first viewed at the 1987 Pan Am Games in Indianapolis, where they thoroughly shocked the United States to win the gold medal, and their attack proved as irresistible as a wink and a lascivious leer. That attack designated two of them to shoot and three of them to do the dirty work, and Marcel Souza-a designated shooter along with Oscar Schmidt-explained it this way: ``We are the piano players. The rest are piano carriers.``

The next day he went for 31 and Schmidt went for 46 (35 in the second half) in Brazil`s improbable 120-115 victory. And then came one of the most-memorable celebrations in the history of such things. Schmidt pounded the floor, and tore at his eyes, and pulled at his hair, and shook his fists at the heavens.

They were viewed next at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, where Brazil finished fifth and Schmidt ended with a competition-high 42.3 points a game

(while also averaging 7.8 rebounds). Are you still the piano players, Souza was asked there.

``Oh, no,`` he said, eyes sparkling. ``Oscar is now the symphony conductor, and I, I am a concert pianist.``

Why don`t your teammates get mad when you take all the shots, came the next question.

``They know,`` said Souza, ``that it is better to eat steak with two shooters than hot dogs with five.``

Now they are on view again here in Seattle, where they won their bracket, setting up Friday`s game with consecutive victories over Spain, Yugoslavia and Australia. Souza, 33 and in his 18th year of international competition, is shooting less yet still starting for them at guard. But Schmidt, 32 and in his 15th year of international competition, is back with his hair-trigger still cocked, and with 101 points in three games, proving to have the most-ageless arm this side of Nolan Ryan`s.

``He enjoy. He enjoy to shoot the ball,`` says Italian coach Alessandro Gamba, a close friend of Schmidt. ``He`s decent on rebounding, decent on defense, but he enjoy to make a two or a three. Then after every basket is done, he increases his emotion, his morale. He`s very proud of what he does.`` How do you manage to keep doing it, Schmidt is asked later.

``I`m a homebody,`` he says with a smile. ``I don`t smoke. I don`t drink. I practice a lot. A lot. A lot. I will play another 15 years.``

And what are your roles here?

``Always the thought is the team,`` says Souza. ``That was always more important than the individual, and it is still like that. If we have to conduct the orchestra, we will conduct the orchestra. If we have to carry the piano, we will carry the piano.``

Has the team`s style changed any over the years?

``Basketball with Brazil is a never-ending fast break. We try to improve with a little more defense. Sometimes we have to control the score like we did against Yugoslavia. But our philosophy is a never-ending fast break. We must run.``

That is the philosophy that shocked the United States back in Indianapolis, shocked the United States when this country still believed it was impregnable in the world of international basketball. It was there that this thinking first was exposed as mere folly, and in the years that have followed, the Soviets have punctuated that point with their victories at Seoul and here last Tuesday.

But it was these basketball Boys from Brazil who made that point first, who made it with a style that was fanciful and imaginative, beguiling and bewitching. When Schmidt entered an Indy restaurant the night of his amazing afternoon, he was greeted with a standing ovation, and when he returned home, a headline in a Brazilian paper quoted him as saying, ``I Felt Like a Beatle in the USA.``

``We are proud of that,`` Schmidt says with a broad grin when asked about being the first to burst the United States` bubble of invincibility.

``I think nothing is wrong (with U.S. basketball). I think

(international) basketball grows up. Now the level is tight,`` says Schmidt. ``I think the NBA is still a level up, and if they start to play,

(international) basketball won`t be so tight. But then after 10 years, maybe it will be tight again.``

``U.S. basketball, they`re too young,`` says Souza. ``So to play against guys who have tough competition in Spain, in Italy, in Brazil, they can`t beat them. We beat a team with David Robinson (and Danny Manning) in Indianapolis. Now we couldn`t beat him. He has experience.

``Oh``-and here his eyes light up-``I`ve played against all of them. Michael Jordan. Robert Parish. Magic Johnson. All those guys in the pros. When we watch pro basketball at home, I am always saying, `Oh, yes, I played against him.` I remember action with Michael Jordan when he was 18, 19, and he flew away from me.

``So``-and now a final smile-``to me the U.S. is always the best. It is very interesting to play the U.S. always.``